Bill and I have reached the end of Jan, 42 so the natural start date is Feb 1, 42 for the AAR. I'll just quickly get folks up to speed on what has happenned then get to the meat and potatoes.
We have no real house rules aside from "keep it real, Ok?" The opening turn house rule was that KB had to attack PH, but Manila or any port in the PI was subject to carrier and LBA attack and any other port was vulnerable to LBA attack. Bill had disappointing results for his
Pearl Harbor strike (the worst I've ever seen![:D]) managing to merely damage shipping, not one sinking. All eight BBs were damaged, 4 severely (Allied Damage Control is OFF in our game so some flooding was touch and go and the last flood damage was repaired about four weeks into the game!). Utah took one torpedo and almost sank...so much for the bomb magnet most claim Utah to be. Four cruisers (2 New Orleans and 2 Brooklyns) were severely damaged. About one dozen destroyers and other vessels were heavily hit. However, while not getting VPs for any lost ships, the larger volume of heavily damaged ships might pay off in the short term. The typical 70-80% destruction of aircraft based at PH was achieved however. The attack on
Manila resulted in 1 Salmon class sub being lost and a few merchants sunk or damaged. At
Singapore, he got lucky and managed to cripple POW with torps and 800kg bombs (POW just arrived in the Middle East and is undergoing repairs along with CL Mauritius and 2 destroyers, also crippled).
During the remainder of December, Bill occupied
Hong Kong (in 3 days! despite the CHS fortifications);
Johnston Island (had me concerned there for awhile but looks mainly to be a seaplane base to keep tabs on PH...although he did vainly attempt to base Nells and A6M2s there until my limited B17-s and LB-30s started their
training [;)] out of Hickam);
Kuching, Borneo (very expensive as the remainder of the RN at Singapore showed up and Repulse, Exeter and 2 destroyers sank about a dozen APs and a few escorts during a bloody daytime engagement in horrible weather);
Amboina (uncontested due to commitments elsewhere);
Northern Luzon,
Naga/Legaspi ,
Mindanao (small naval actions involving Asiatic Fleet PTs and DDs and some air strikes vs naval units...CS Chitose succumbs to damage and sinks at Palau);
Northern Malaya (trapping a few units at Georgetown due to the draconian ZOC rules for land model which utilizes whopping big 60 mile hexes, coupled with the 59/60 march bug[:@]); and
Batan Is north of Luzon.
I waited for the weather to worsen and for his mini KB to retire to replenish before sending out a stream of merchants and auxilliaries headed for Perth through the Makassar Strait. This continued while the bad weather held and appproximately 90% of the shipping initially based in Manila made it through, loaded to the gills with fuel and base forces as PPs allowed. Mini KB showed up twice during this period but the weather was fortunately quite bad and his strikes were not exactly effective, sinking a few merchants here and there. Tarakan and Balikpapan, providing LR CAP for the escaping ships, were treated to a bombardment each, and these were uncontested by naval or aircraft for the most part do to poor weather hindering the sighting of these large TFs. Not surprisingly given the current air asw search model, IJN subs were being sighted despite the weather!
On two occasions Bill got bold with mini KB and slowly inched into the Makassar Strait in search of targets. Seeing this, during a break in the bad weather I twice staged about 40 Dutch Buffaloes and 60 Martins at size 3 Tarakan and stood them down the turn they arrived. The next turn on both occasions, mini KB is well within range and guess what happens? About 30 Buffaloes and 5 Martins launch! WTF
? And this happens on both occasions! Ample escort seeing as the strikes launched but what happenned to the bombers? I checked the following turns and aside from a few damaged during the staging, all were servicable and had high morale/readiness. They just watched the five bombers, looked like a portion of one squadron, fly off to their deaths (the ESCORT was cut to ribbons but the bombers made it through only to be nailed by flak or damaged and lost on the return flight...no hits). I'd love someone to explain/rationalize these strikes so I can laugh "in their general direction!". [:D] No military in the world would send off a few bombers while the remainder watched them leave! [8|]
During January, Bill continued his operations on
Luzon but the Allies still hold about 50%, including
Clark, San Marcelino, Naga, Bataan, Manila.
Mindanao has been gradually invested by the Japanese so that by Feb 1 only
Cagayan still holds. Bill has advanced in
Malaya so that by Feb 1 only
Singapore and
Victoria Point are still Royal. (Bill was agressive on the east coast and made several landings in an effort to cut off the retreating forces withdrawing down the peninsula to Johore and paid dearly as the RAF sank the CL Isuzu, a few destroyers and lesser escorts and another dozen or so transports. No surface actions were risked given the Japanese LBA at Kuching.)
Burma is still Allied but
Rangoon is now devoid of fighter cover and untenable as a naval base due to Japanese LBS at
Bangkok, Tavoy and
Rahaeng. (I pushed my luck one day too long and the two old CLs I was harassing the airfield at Tavoy with got caught in clear weather by massive newly arrived LBA and Ceres was sunk and Columbo damaged in port at Rangoon. In the
South Pacific Bill invested the majority of the bases along the North Coast of
New Guinea, halting at
Madang.
Rabaul is under seige and
Lunga has a small IJN seaplane base.
That's takes us to Feb 1, the start of this AAR. I'm going to post the combat report for Jan 31/42 mainly because of the weird surface combat which happenned and I want to comment on.
AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 01/31/42
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Night Air attack on Bangkok
Allied aircraft
Blenheim I x 3
Allied aircraft losses
Blenheim I: 3 damaged
Aircraft Attacking:
3 x Blenheim I bombing at 6000 feet
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Night Air attack on Bangkok
Allied aircraft
Wellington III x 6
Allied aircraft losses
Wellington III: 2 damaged
Aircraft Attacking:
6 x Wellington III bombing at 12000 feet
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Night Time Surface Combat at 110,130
Japanese Ships
PG Hokoku Maru, Shell hits 17, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
Allied Ships
CL Marblehead
DD Bulmer
DD Whipple
OK, this is what I want to talk about. Bill unfortunately forgot about his two AMCs that started off Tahiti on Dec 7th. About a week ago I saw a report from my newly arrived PBY squadron at Tahiti that a TF was one hex west of the base. Thinking that this could not be the AMCs and must be a sub, I sent the PTs I had sent to Tahiti for a looksee. There were the two Japanese merchant cruisers and the PTs hit one and sink it. Over the next day or so I see the same TF show up in reports and send a small TF on the way to the US escorting some merchants badly needed for the US/OZ run to intercept. As you can see the AMC got blasted during the night action and is a floating wreck.
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Day Air attack on 65th Brigade, just NE of Clark Field
Allied aircraft
B-17D Fortress x 7
Allied aircraft losses
B-17D Fortress: 3 damaged
Japanese ground losses:
13 casualties reported
Aircraft Attacking:
B-17D Fortress bombing at 9000 feet
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Day Air attack on 26th PS Cavalry Regiment, at 43,51
Japanese aircraft
G4M1 Betty x 15
Ki-27 Nate x 21
Ki-21-II Sally x 9
Ki-48-I Lily x 9
Ki-49 Helen x 20
Japanese aircraft losses
G4M1 Betty: 1 damaged
Allied ground losses:
8 casualties reported
Guns lost 1
Aircraft Attacking:
Ki-48-I Lily bombing at 15000 feet
Ki-21-II Sally bombing at 15000 feet
Ki-49 Helen bombing at 15000 feet
G4M1 Betty bombing at 15000 feet
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Day Air attack on 200th US Coast AA Regiment, at 43,51
Japanese aircraft
G4M1 Betty x 3
Ki-27 Nate x 8
Ki-21-II Sally x 9
Ki-48-I Lily x 13
Ki-49 Helen x 3
No Japanese losses
Allied ground losses:
27 casualties reported
Aircraft Attacking:
Ki-21-II Sally bombing at 15000 feet
Ki-48-I Lily bombing at 15000 feet
Ki-49 Helen bombing at 15000 feet
G4M1 Betty bombing at 15000 feet
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Day Time Surface Combat at 110,130
Japanese Ships
PG Hokoku Maru, Shell hits 10, and is sunk
Allied Ships
CL Marblehead
DD Bulmer
DD Whipple
The earlier battle was funny because Bill left these poor bastards to die ingloriously for the Emperor. This second one is funny because of what the combat report can't show you. The Marblehead and 2 DDs had orders to patrol this hex and not retire (hence this second action) The state of the IJN ship was such that it was a flaming wreck with no weapons to fire. One has to imagine that this battle started in the early morning and continued on into the day as the US ships tried to sink the hulk. Take a guess at what happenned. [8|] When the daylight round started the flaming wreck which was being pounded on continuously somehow managed to "surprise" the US ships there the whole time! I've been dumping on the surface combat model for three years now saying that it completely lacked any cause/effect, rhyme or reason and until now there was not a definitive example to proove me correct. Well folks, this has to be it. For all the formulas and what not supposedly in the model, this model just appears to be a simple series of random die rolls. It could be so much better with some effort like that put into ASW. [8D][8|]
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Ground combat at Cagayan
Japanese Bombardment attack
Attacking force 36530 troops, 210 guns, 24 vehicles
Defending force 8311 troops, 54 guns, 0 vehicles
Allied ground losses:
8 casualties reported
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Ground combat at 50,34
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 9194 troops, 83 guns, 0 vehicles
Defending force 1837 troops, 8 guns, 0 vehicles
Japanese assault odds: 17 to 1
Japanese ground losses:
6 casualties reported
Guns lost 1
Allied ground losses:
23 casualties reported
Defeated Allied Units Retreating!
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Ground combat at Wuchow
Japanese Bombardment attack
Attacking force 43385 troops, 404 guns, 41 vehicles
Defending force 46509 troops, 258 guns, 0 vehicles
Allied ground losses:
92 casualties reported
Guns lost 3
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Ground combat at Singapore
Japanese Bombardment attack
Attacking force 4036 troops, 87 guns, 0 vehicles
Defending force 54108 troops, 272 guns, 10 vehicles
Allied ground losses:
41 casualties reported
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Ground combat at Naga
Japanese Bombardment attack
Attacking force 1032 troops, 24 guns, 0 vehicles
Defending force 28579 troops, 155 guns, 0 vehicles
Allied ground losses:
114 casualties reported
Guns lost 1
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Ground combat at Wuchow
Allied Bombardment attack
Attacking force 40475 troops, 255 guns, 0 vehicles
Defending force 48309 troops, 404 guns, 41 vehicles
Japanese ground losses:
230 casualties reported
Guns lost 2
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Ground combat at 43,40
Allied Bombardment attack
Attacking force 26262 troops, 134 guns, 0 vehicles
Defending force 7733 troops, 47 guns, 0 vehicles
Japanese ground losses:
9 casualties reported
Allied ground losses:
4 casualties reported
Guns lost 1
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Ground combat at Rabaul
Allied Bombardment attack
Attacking force 908 troops, 9 guns, 0 vehicles
Defending force 12254 troops, 49 guns, 0 vehicles
Japanese ground losses:
11 casualties reported
Guns lost 1
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Ground combat at Naga
Allied Bombardment attack
Attacking force 2425 troops, 40 guns, 0 vehicles
Defending force 50712 troops, 147 guns, 79 vehicles
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Ground combat at 51,34
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 7985 troops, 80 guns, 8 vehicles
Defending force 164 troops, 0 guns, 0 vehicles
Japanese assault odds: 180 to 1
Allied ground losses:
22 casualties reported
Defeated Allied Units Retreating!
